Initial Install
 

I am trying to salvage about 30 older pentium 75 machines for the local library in our community. Funding has been cut so much they can't afford books much less systems. A hospital donated 30 systems to be used in the library and I recently got copies of both Redhat and Mandrake. So far Mandrake has tried to install the easiest. The problem I am having is that both lock up when they reach the piint of loading available packets to install. I get through the partitioning but not the packeages to install options. I'm not sure if this an issue with the age of the systems of if the hard drive size is way too small. They are 64 mb ram and 850 mg IDE HDD. Pentium 75. If anyone has any idea what I can do to possible have linus on the systems to avoid paying Bill an arm and a leg...please let me know. Also, if there is any clue on why I keep getting the lock up.

Are you sure that you are waiting long enough? The process of reading
the available packages takes up to 5 minutes or more on my Pentium
4 system sometimes. How long are you waiting before deciding that it is
locked up?

Well...the cdrom stops and the prompt screen goes away and leaves me with just the clock....there is no hdd activity or cd activity

Noone has any idea?
 

I am still lookign for some answers. Anyone have any idea how I can get this resolved?

Might help to know what versions your trying to install. I can tell you one thing, if you have the latest Redhat and Mandrake and your trying to install on a p75 with 850 mb hard drives, your probably not going to have much luck. Even if you did get them installed and you planned on running X, most likely going to be drastically slow.

So more details will probably get your more responses. If your using newer distro's, I would recommend getting a lighter smaller one or maybe an older version of either Redhat or Mandrake. Can't find a copy, I'll be happy to send one to you to try. :)

Thanks
 

Thanks for the suggestion. They are both the new versions. Redhat 8 and Mandrake 9. I put a larger hard drive in and it seemed to help the install. I completed the entire install but when I boot it is asking me for a localhost login and password. It doesn't have a modem or a network card to login to anything. Did I miss a step in the install or what? I installed the Madrake instead of Redhat. The installation was better.

localhost is your machine. linux requires a login before you get any funcionality out of it. during the install it should have asked for a root password, where you typed a root password.

Goes something like this:

localhost login: root
password: password you created

Hi, I'm linux...

root@localhost # type your commands here

Great
 

Gotcha. Thanks so much. Hard to tell I am a noobie huh? ;o) When I get to that point how do I get Gnome or Kde to load? I got absolutley no literature with my software so I am kind of running blind. I ahve found some great stuff on the net and this site. And the help I am getting here is greatly appreciated.

To start x you type startx <enter> at the prompt, but KDE/GNOME will be S-L-O-W those computers. Try IceWm, Blackbox/Fluxbox or even twm or aewm, maybe windowmaker as well. If you get an error trying startx it means X most likely wasn't configured right, run xf86config to configure it. Well, hope that helps some
-NSKL

Thanks...I used startx and got an error. I also ran the config you suggested and it would not let it write after walking through the steps. I am beginning to think Bill will be getting about 3 grand to get an os on these computers. I want the systems to be usable with internet and word processing capabilities, pretty simple I would think. I have isntalled Windos 98 on one and it ran fine. Is there a linux alternative that is just as easy to install and use as Windows? This is starting to make me think it is worth paying the $100 each to not have the aggravation.

Well like I said before, even if you do get X installed on these they are going to be really slow.
There would be lots of configuration involved ( getting rid of services that are not needed like apache.. etc ), maybe an older distro that isn't so heavy, getting a lighter desktop like XFce, Blackbox.. etc to run instead of Gnome or KDE, or even getting a lighter/smaller distro.

Any clue where I can get something that would work. I could give you a toatl rundown on the systems and see if you think there is any hope for it other than Windows. I just want something that will be easy to get on them and run decently. Like I said...they will be mainly email, internet and word processing stations running static ips. Nothing fancy...just usable.

They will be comparatively slow to what we are used to running on.. but certainly not slower than Win98.

What error did you get when tried to configure XWindows? Have you tried running "Xconfigurator" ?

I recommend not using KDE or GNOME if all you need is internet and word processing. Use the FVWM2 or TWM window manager.... it comes with both Mandrake and Redhat. Use Mozilla as your browser and something like AbiWord as your word processor. All of that comes with the distributions you are trying out. During the install, choose to install XWindows, but not KDE or GNOME and it should be configured with FVWM2 or TWM as default I think.

-K.

yes...the earlier pst gave me what to run....and I walked through what it asked and when I went to write to the destination it gave...it said it couldn't do it.

Now I know when your running xf86config, at the very end when it asks you to write the file, did you type just a "y" or did you type "yes" ?
I know it can be picky and I believe its looking for the whole word of yes...
And have you tried Xconfigurator though ? Its more easier usually for people new.